Pokot

I was feeling a lot better this morning; no midnight migraines had appeared last night.  I went downstairs at 6am to meet Wilson and whatever transportation he had lined up for me.  I was pleasantly surprised to find two Americans, Wilson, and another Kenyan in a great 4 wheel drive Mitsubishi.  The Americans were David O’Neil, a former missionary here and his son Carl.  The Kenyan was Poteous, who works with David here in Eldoret.  David had worked in this area for years and knew absolutely everything about mission work and Kenya as well as knowing everyone we met along the way.

The drive was beautiful.  Amazingly beautiful.  We crossed theses small mountains to get to the valley where the Pokot live.  The descent down the mountain was like something out of a storybook.  Mountains covered in dense, green vegetation, rolling clouds shrouding parts of the mountains, grand vistas that went on for miles and miles, and not a power line, or any other sign of man to spoil the view.  It was like God had painted a beautiful picture just for us.  Once we reached the valley floor, the view was much different.  The flat lands are strewn with rocks.  Millions and millions of them.  The land if so rocky, practically nothing can be farmed here.

The Pokot and the other two tribes that live in the area have been nomadic herders of goats and cows.  They are pretty much settled now, but rely on good herds of goats to eat and sell to keep them fed.  They are coming out of a drought so times have been very hard for them.  Wilson has been working to evangelize the area.  A small church had been established by the work of David O’Neil’s team, and Wilson’s work to expand it has been very successful.  There are now three strong churches in this area.

We have an unusual feeding station arrangement here.  Because the land area is vast and population density is low, we have two small feeding stations on leased land, and we visited both of them.  The stations looked great.  We stopped at Wilson’s house for a snack and then went on to the site of the largest church.  There about 300 people, mostly kids from the area including the feeding station kids, singing and praising God.  The local chief, who is also a church elder, emceed the proceedings.  There were choirs, speeches and a short sermon from David.  All in all, it was very satisfying.

After a quick lunch we were off for home.  It’s a long way there and back, about 4.5 hours each way, so we didn’t get back to Eldoret until 8pm.  Tonight we pack up for tomorrow we’ll be in a different hotel, the Kunste in Nakuru.  Susie will write a blog post for the Ngenymesut medical visit and post it later.  We’re having some trouble with reliability on the internet side from Safaricom, so please forgive if you are getting these late.

Pokot